The Healing (The Things We Can't Change Book 3) (5 page)

I carefully pull back the sliding glass door to the kitchen and walk inside. I’m hoping Evie will be inside, as she seems to be in here a lot, but the kitchen is empty and the house is eerily quiet. My footsteps sound unnaturally loud as I go to the fridge and pull out a bottle of water, getting the creepy feeling that I shouldn’t be doing this, that I’m stealing. Which is ridiculous, because they told me I was welcome to the fridge and all its contents my first week here.

I drink a whole bottle of water and am halfway through a second before I finally feel halfway recovered. Then I have to stop, stand still and listen to the empty house around me. I wonder if I should just leave, wait and tell Evie about the stupid pond next week.

Something won’t let me though. One by one and with painful slowness, the hairs on the back of my neck all stand up and a shiver passes through me. I can’t put my finger on exactly what the feeling is, why or how I suddenly know that something is awfully, terribly wrong, but I do. And I know it has to do with Evie.

A noise overhead makes me jump, and I look up at the ceiling. The second floor. She must be upstairs. Before I can decide if it’s a good idea, before I can ask myself why I even care, I’m off up the stairs, treading as quickly but as quietly as I can.

I have to go down two dark hallways before I finally spot light peeking out from underneath a closed doorway. The door isn’t latched and I peek through the crack trying to see if it’s actually Evie inside.

I can’t see anything since I’m facing the wrong angle. The intense feeling of… of
wrongness
magnifies and I’m pushing the door slowly open before I even realize it. It’s an office, huge and dark, only a lamp on the big center desk lighting the room. I know instantly that it all belonged to Ian Parker.

Evie is standing behind the desk, facing my direction. I see it all; the bare forearm, the gauze, the giant knife in her other hand, laid against her forearm. I see it, but it isn’t until I see the long ribbon of blood welling from the long diagonal cut that I really process what she’s doing. And then I lose it.

“Evie,
what the
FUCK?” I scream. I’m across the room and behind the desk so quickly I can’t even process it. I just know one minute I’m shouting her name, and the next I’m there behind the desk, knocking the knife out of her hand and sending it flying across the room.

It’s all chaos for one blind, hysteria-filled moment; I’m shouting but I don’t even know what I’m saying and Evie is shouting back at me but I can’t even hear her over the roaring my ears. I think I’m asking her over and over again what the hell she’s doing, and she’s screaming for me to leave but I know that I can’t.

Instead I grab her arm because it’s bleeding all over the fucking place now, large rivulets trailing down toward her wrist. Evie tries to pull away from me but I don’t let go, only yank the gauze off the desk by one end, so it flies off the desk and into the air, landing on the carpeted floor and half the roll unraveling as I pull desperately on it.

“Stop!” Evie is screaming, fighting me with everything she has and the blood on her arm is making my hold on her slippery, but I still refuse to let go. “Stop, Zeke! Let go of me! Get out! You have no right to be in here!”

“No! You’re fucking crazy, Evie! Quit! Fighting! Me!” I have to grunt out the last few words because she’s trying to push me away with her free hand, and finally I give up on having any tact and get her into a headlock, capturing her beneath me so I’m in a superior position due to my height and strength.

She’s screaming and kicking and hissing now, giving no thought to her cut wrist or the droplets of blood that are falling to the desk and the floor. I know she’s probably panicked not just because I found her, but because I’m touching her. I know I should have some respect for her because I know she doesn’t like to be touched, that it terrifies her, but
shit
, she’s terrified me and I’m losing my mind because she’s still fucking bleeding and all I can think is that I’ve got to make it stop.

I wrestle with her until she’s in front of me and I have her pushed up against the desk, am practically lying down on top of her to get her to hold still. I don’t know if she’s just tired herself out or if she’s feeling lightheaded from all the blood she’s lost, but Evie isn’t struggling as hard, though she’s by no means giving up. I ignore her struggles and clumsily use my free hand to wrap the gauze around and around her arm. It’s a shitty bandage, sloppy and clumsy and hardly all that effective, since it’s not very tight, but it’s a battle sure enough, and I refuse to quit until I’ve won.

Finally, I’ve practically wrapped the whole roll of gauze around her arm and only then do I back off, wiping my sweaty brow and my chest heaving with both exertion and horror. Evie stays slack over the top of the desk, her cut arm still outstretched in front of her, laying on her side, her other arm curled at her side and clenched in a fist. She’s breathing heavy too but shows no inclination to get up from her sloppy position.

“What the
hell
, Evie,” I finally push out, and my voice is hoarse. “What are you doing to yourself? How long have you been doing that?”

Her eyes close, squeeze shut tightly and her mouth pinches into a tight line, and she doesn’t answer me, only lays there and breathes, out and in. She’s wearing fewer clothes than I’ve ever seen in the past few weeks, some kind of sleep-boxer shorts and a lightweight t-shirt with no shoes. My eyes rake over her and I see all the scratches and scrapes on her thighs, some scabbing over, others just raw, red skin as though she just raked her nails over them. They’re on her arms, too, along with the easily identifiable crescent-moon marks of nails being dug into tender skin.

“Evie,” I breathe slowly. “What are you doing to yourself?”

She still doesn’t answer and I suddenly understand why every time I’ve seen her the past month, she’s been wearing jeans or long pants, long sleeved shirts or sweaters, even in the warm summer time. She’s been hiding. Hiding all the damage that she’s been doing to herself.

“Why?” I demand, and advance on her a few steps. “Why are you doing this?”

The instant I move toward her, Evie’s body tenses and she pulls herself into a half-standing position, still leaning heavily against the desk as she cradles her cut arm to her chest and glares at me. Her face is dark, almost foreign; scary, I realize with a small shiver.

“You weren’t supposed to be here,” she says, her voice wheezing. “No one is supposed to be home.”

“That makes this okay, then!” I cry out sarcastically, feeling hysterical. I force myself to calm down, count to ten or some shit because I don’t want to scare her into shutting down completely. “Evie, why are you doing this? Tell me what’s going on.”

“Like you care,” she mutters, and my eyes bulge.

“You’re slicing your arm open, of course I care!” I shout, and I’m so full of nervous adrenaline that I have to start pacing.

“You don’t,” Evie says flatly, emotionlessly. “No one cares. I tried to talk to you.”

Guilt, immediate and consummate, fills me at her words. She did try, that first day when I was forced to come back here after Dr. Parker’s death. She came flying out to the backyard and I told her to get away from me. I’d seen the stricken look on her face, as though I’d kicked her, and I still turned away. If I’d guessed she was sinking this deep I never would have turned her away.

Or maybe I would have. It occurs to me that I’m no better at facing my demons than Evie is, that I’m barely coping myself. But at least I haven’t descended to the point where I’m doing myself—or anyone else, for that matter—bodily harm.

“
Why
?” I demand again, more forcefully this time.

With a grunt of effort, Evie pushes away from the desk and stands on her own two feet, though she wobbles a little bit. Cradling her arm, she looks at me through her tangled curtain of hair, her eyes seeming lighter and more ghostlike than ever, as though she’s floating away, no longer present in her own body.

“Get out,” is all she says, and it takes extreme effort not to reach out and grab her, shake her into telling me.

“Evie,” I begin warningly.

“GET OUT!” she screams, pointing at the open door.

I look between Evie and the door, hesitating. I can’t leave her like this. I can’t do it. I have a burning need to get to the root of the issue, to find out what the problem is and why she’s doing this to herself, but the way her hand is trembling and the empty look in her eyes tells me that right now is not the time. I know better than anyone that sometimes space is needed, distance and separation.

I do the only thing that seems acceptable; I leave. But just for extra insurance, I scoop the knife up off the floor as I pass by, not able to leave the disgusting thing in the same room as Evie. I know it’s stupid, that she can cut herself with any knife and I should really raid the kitchen, not the stupid office, but it gives me a small measure of peace to take it with me. The instant I’m out in the hallway, the door slams closed behind me and I hear the decisive
click
of a lock being turned.

I stand staring at it for a long time, listening, thinking, wondering. There’s absolutely no sound, as though Evie knows I’m still out here on the other side. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, I turn and leave the house, throwing the knife into a dumpster on my walk home. But even three miles later, the sick feeling is still in the pit of my stomach, there are still faint traces of blood on my hands, Evie’s blood once again, and I know that I can no longer keep my distance.

Ezekiel

49

I’m in a panic all day Saturday. I wake up after a fitful night of sleep where I toss and turn over and over, worry for Evie and what she might be doing to herself keeping me from drifting off. It’s the first time I have nightmares about someone other than Cindy, though I don’t realize this right away. I finally jump out of bed at first light and at first I’m determined to go over to the Parkers even though I don’t have to go on Saturdays. The work isn’t what’s important, after all. I just want to have an excuse to check on Evie.

But as I take a shower, I realize how ridiculous that is. Evie is sucking me in yet again, pulling and pushing on me and making me
feel
. Even though right now it’s mostly just panic and horror, I know how easily it can turn into concern and caring. It’s the last thing I want, and who the hell do I think I am, anyway, having any thoughts that I can actually help her? My own life is just as messed up, and I do my best not to experience emotions of any kind. I’m in just as much denial as Evie is about life. So why am I thrusting myself into the role of helper and rescuer?

Because if you’re not the one cutting your own arm open, you’ve obviously got your shit together just a little bit more than Evie does,
whispers the part of me that has always been fascinated with Evie Parker, the part that
wants
to feel.

It’s a very small part however; obviously, since I’m always beating it back and pushing away the feelings. By the time I get out of the shower, I’ve convinced myself that I can at least wait until Monday to check on Evie. This turns into a day-long battle, though, where I can’t sit still, can’t focus on a damn thing because I’m constantly worrying about her, have visions of her doing awful things to herself when I lose control of my mind and it wanders away from me. I have to jerk it back under control, tell myself that she’s hardly suicidal, which is another lie. She may have been ‘just’ cutting herself but if that isn’t a sign that someone is probably suicidal, then what other sign is there?

I get through Saturday, but Sunday morning is when I break down. I wake up, plant my feet on the floor and feel the gauge in the wood left over from Cindy. From when she was alive. And that’s when it hits me that I could be watching another girl die before my very eyes, freezing in the time of need just like I did when Cindy’s life was at stake. And I know, badass, rebel, delinquent and hardass that I strive to be, that I am, I still can’t allow that to happen. Even though it’s the girl who is semi-involved in Cindy’s death to begin with. I just can’t let myself stand idly by.

I pull on work clothes and tell myself that I’m not going to get in deep. I’m just going to try and get her to stop harming herself, to actually tell someone this time. Hopefully a guilt trip about what happened the last time she didn’t tell will be enough to push her into doing something. I really mean it, too. Because I know what would go hand in hand with trying to help Evie deal with her problems—she’ll try and find out my problems too, try and fix me too.

And I don’t want to be fixed.

I walk to the Parkers house on streets that are bathed in pink and orange from the sunrise. It’s still early, really early and I don’t want to wake anyone up or anything, so I allow myself to duck into a Tim Hortons and grab coffee and a few donuts, force myself to sit and eat and drink leisurely to kill time. It’s only as I’m tossing out my trash an hour later that I realize caffeine and extra sugar is probably the last thing my already-jittery body needs. Still, it’s now a more reasonable time of day and I kill another hour by stopping by the bridge to smoke two cigarettes on the way.